Since the major Marvel comic characters such as Spider-man and Fantastic Four are licensed to other studios, Marvel – who is making their own movies now (as if you didn’t already know that!) – has been forced to dig up some B-list titles from their back catalogue to make into movies.

They don’t however come more B-list than Guardians of the Galaxy, which has been rumored to be the next Marvel movie. Guardians of the what now?!

This obscure title has been around since 1969 and revolves around a team of superheroes from the 31st century who must save the Earth from an invasion by an alien race known as the Badoon. To be honest we remember the title as one of the better Marvel Comic titles of the 1970s when it was scripted as a trippy psychedelic tale by Steve Gerber of Howard the Duck fame. Read more about it here.

(Marvelheads will however tell you how it ties in closely with the recent alien invasion shenanigans in the Avengers movie.)

The title has been more recently revamped in 2008 with new team members to include a machine gun-wielding Raccoon (we kid you not) amongst others. According to Wikipedia Guardians of the Galaxy was the 61st top-selling comic title of May 2008 which to our mind doesn’t exactly make it prime material for a multi-million dollar blockbuster. But hey, what do we know? We didn’t just produce The Avengers, one of the biggest hit movies of all time . . .

Anyway, it is expected that Marvel will announce an August 1, 2014 release date for Guardians of the Galaxy at the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con 2012 next week. We’ll see.

About the Author

James has been running The Sci-Fi Movie Page since Before the Beginning of Time Itself (TM), i.e. since the site's inception in 1997. In addition to sci-fi James also likes 1970s motorbikes and chili dogs although he doesn't own the former and no longer eats the latter. He currently resides in Kiev, Ukraine for reasons best left unexplained.